


Glimpse the Truth

by Defcon



Series: Life Flows On [3]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: ...is the main pairing, Barry POV, Barry can't not get feelings, Enemies With Benefits, FlashWave, Friends With Benefits, M/M, coldwave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-09 02:35:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7783474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Defcon/pseuds/Defcon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After sleeping together for the first time, Mick and Barry stumble into a friends/enemies-with-benefits relationship that develops into exactly what each of them needs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glimpse the Truth

**Author's Note:**

> I lied ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ this series is actually going to have four parts. This story is more of Barry and Mick's relationship, and how it changes while Len is training at the Vanishing Point. I could've gone straight into Len's return after Within You, Without You, but I wanted to spend a little time with just Mick and Barry. 
> 
> I don't think you need to read the previous parts to understand what's happening here, but they do give some context.

When Barry wakes up the morning after sleeping with Heat Wave for the first time, he figures the situation will be uncomfortable at best and dangerous at worst. 

What it turns out to be is not actually the morning -- apparently he and Mick had been so exhausted from all of their various heartaches that the vigorous exercise involved in sex knocked them out until almost 1 P.M.

Barry’s sitting up in bed and dazedly checking his messages when Mick startles awake next to him. He flails for a second in the sheets, then flings an arm over to grip at Barry’s knee, looking worried.

“Did I hurt you?” Mick asks, eyes wide.

“What? Oh, you mean-- do you mean last night?” Without a sleep shirt Barry knows the blush on his chest and neck is fully visible.

“Yeah, did I hit you in my sleep? I dreamed that I was punchin’ some guys,” Mick says (sleep gave his already rumbly voice a growling quality that Barry’s trying not to let affect him). “I do that sometimes. Once I shoved Lenny right out of bed because I had a dream we were being attacked.”

Barry bursts out laughing, but clamps up when Mick just glares at him. Suddenly the other man whips the sheet off of Barry’s lap.

“WHOAH! What are-- are you checking for bruises?!” He is. Barry decides not to mention that even if Mick had accidentally clocked him, there wouldn’t be any bruises left as evidence.

“Mick, I’m pretty sure that I would have woken up if you’d punched me.”

Once Mick’s satisfied that Barry is okay, he pulls the sheet back over Barry’s lap and flops on his belly with his face in the pillow. He stays like that for a second, then turns his head to smirk up at Barry.

“Last night was the good kinda’ weird, right?”

“For sur--“ Barry is interrupted by the sound of his stomach growling. It’s embarrassingly forlorn. “Heh. Do you have any food?”

Mick rolls over, reaches under the bed, and comes up with a box of Froot Loops. 

“Yeah, all right,” Barry sighs, taking the box, “I’m more of a Fruity Pebbles man, but any port in a storm I guess. You mind if I finish these?”

“S’not even opened yet,” Mick replies, his voice muffled by the pillow. Barry can’t believe the other man is really falling back asleep. He must be getting even less than Barry lately, which, considering he’s just lost his lover and partner and best friend, is probably justified.

Barry’s father had been killed in front of him right when he’d thought he’d finally gotten him back for good, but at least he has the Wests and Cisco and Caitlin to fall back on. Does Mick even have anyone else? 

And now Barry is going to eat all of his Froot Loops.

“I’ll buy you a new box.”

\-------

Barry ends up buying Mick three new boxes because he had also finished his juice, plus he throws in a box of Fruity Pebbles with a friendly, no-pressure note urging the other man to try the superior fruit-inspired breakfast cereal.

Two weeks later Team Flash and Team Legends (notably sans Captain Cold and the Hawks, but with some new members Barry still hasn’t met) are having a confab at S.T.A.R. Labs when Mick catches his eye and jerks his head to the side, indicating for Barry to follow him out of the Cortex.

Rip, Rex and Caitlin are arguing about something Rex wants Barry to do using the Speed Force, and whether or not that could tear Barry into a million pieces and scatter him all across the multi-verse, so Barry feels pretty confident that he can slip away without them noticing. 

Barry’s just turned the corner when a broad hand catches him in the chest and pushes him up against the wall.

“Mick, what are you doing?!” Barry stage whispers. “We are not fooling around where all of them can hear! Are-- are we?”

“No! We’re not doing anything! That was a one” -- Mick prods him in the chest with a finger -- “time” -- again -- “thing!” And a third time.

“Weeellll,” Barry starts, but Mick shakes his head, eyes boring into Barry’s.

“No. One time. We’re not telling anybody about it, especially not Lisa” -- (“Lisa’s not even here,” Barry mumbles rebelliously) -- “ _Especially_ not Lisa, and we’re not doing it again.”

Mick turns away like he’s going to return to the Cortex, but then he swings back with a finger directly in Barry’s face.

“And we are not cereal buddies, you got that? Next time you find yourself in a supermarket thinking of buying me cereal, don’t.”

Barry holds his hands up in surrender, but replies archly, “Sounds like somebody found out he loves Fruity Pebbles and doesn’t want to admit he was wrong.”

Mick drops his head into his hands, then drags them both down his face, “I have no idea what the hell you’re talkin’ about!”

The shouting from the Cortex increases in volume suddenly, so Barry grabs a suspender and drags Mick further down the hall. He uses the walk to try to calm down and get his amusement over Mick using the term ‘cereal buddies’ off of his face. He leads them to the kitchenette, pops a pod into the coffee machine and sets a cup under the nozzle. Mick leans against the counter with his arms crossed.

“Not gonna offer me a cup?” Mick grumps.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Barry smiles sweetly, “I thought the full extent of our relationship was hero and villain. If anything I should be offering to escort you to a jail cell, right?”

Mick rolls his eyes. “You know, when Snart was mad at me it was just the silent treatment. I preferred that.”

The gears in the coffee machine make the groaning/thunking noise that means the pod is finished dispensing, so Barry grabs the cup, blows on it, hands it to Mick, then sets up a new pod and cup for himself.

“Oh,” Mick looks down at the cup for a second. “Uh, thanks.” He takes a tentative sip, then grimaces.

“Yeah it’s the worst,” Barry grins. “So. We had sex.”

“Yup.”

“I will not buy you cereal again if it makes you uncomfortable,” Barry offers.

“Doesn’t make me uncomfortable. S’just weird.”

“Noted.”

Mick chugs the coffee and crumples his empty cup. “I’m the weird one. You’re the first person I slept with other than Snart in a while.”

“Oh...” the machine groan/thunks, and Barry takes his cup out. “Thought you said you and Len weren’t exclusive?”

“We weren’t. But that was mostly cause he was all fucked about commitment. Don’t make that face, what we had _was_ a commitment, and if he needed to step out every once in a while to convince himself it wasn’t, I didn’t particularly care. S’not like it changed anything between us. Hell, usually meant I got less of the silent treatment.” 

“That’s still kind of messed up,” Barry says, trying to convey an appropriate amount of sympathy without coming across as condescending.

“Yeah, well,” Mick shuffles Barry to the side so he can put another cup in the coffee machine. “We were also criminals on the lam living in an abandoned warehouse. Being bad at feelings kind of goes with the gig. Why am I making a second cup of this?”

“Cause coffee taste bad but help Mick be person?” Barry offers.

Mick huffs a laugh. “Oh yeah.”

“I won’t tell anyone we slept together, _especially_ Lisa,” Barry says, “But I am putting it out there that I’m open to occasionally banging away my feelings of helplessness and despair with a casual friend-slash-villain.” He’d tried to say it like a joke, but Mick shoots him a surprisingly shrewd glance that says he’s on to Barry. 

“Noted,” Mick grins.

**_Groan--Thunk!_ **

\-------

When Barry wakes up the morning after sleeping with Heat Wave for the second time, he is honestly ashamed remembering some of the things he had done and said the night before. He throws an arm over his eyes. “Oh god...”

“Haha, yeah,” Mick laughs from somewhere on the floor. Is he doing sit-ups? “Somebody had a lot of helplessness and despair to work through last night.”

Barry startles as something light, but with sharp corners lands on his chest. “Wha-- Cocoa Pebbles?!”

“Those are better,” Mick says. 

\-------

This thing he and Mick have going is surprisingly good. Weird, but good.

True to his word, Barry hasn’t told anybody about it. Well, he sort of told Iris, but he’d covered it up by saying it was someone he met on Tindr. After a brief commiseration about online dating, they’d made a literal pinky promise to stay out of each other’s semi-anonymous sex lives.

Truthfully Barry and Mick don’t get together all that often. Mick is still traveling with Rip’s crew, and still working (now for Lisa) to establish the Rogues when he’s in 2016. Each time Barry stops by the warehouse (always when everyone but Mick is out, and always with his cover as Sam at the ready) it looks more and more completed. Last time he was there he’d noted the full garage, fridge and dry pantry, make-shift lab for Hartley, Mick’s workspace, and cots in the upper level for anyone who had to crash unexpectedly or lay low to recuperate. 

After Mardon nearly catches Mick and “Sam” on one of said cots, Mick rumbles that it may be time for him to move on from living at the warehouse permanently.

“My room’s meant to be an office space, anyway. I should free it up for Lisa, she needs a place to plan in peace away from these weirdos.”

“Yourself included?”

“‘Course.”

So Mick moves out, and he doesn’t tell Barry where exactly he goes, and Barry is surprisingly fine with it. He and Mick aren’t really dating, and while Barry would be lying if he said he didn’t have feelings for the older man, he’s never had any illusions regarding their arrangement. 

\-------

Shortly after that Mick shows up at Barry’s place for the first time, smelling like a firepit and with red eyes. Barry tries to make a joke about Heat Wave knowing where the Flash lives, but Mick’s too busy crowding him backward and pushing him onto the couch and kissing him like he’s possessed. 

After, Mick admits that he’d nearly burned his new building down, that he’d gotten distracted watching the blue flames on the stove-top burner and hadn’t noticed the couple (dozen) matches he’d lit and discarded smoldering on the carpet in the hallway just outside the kitchen. 

Barry tries to give Mick what he needs -- not exactly comfort, but not recrimination, either. He’s shaky and anxious, like the time he’d woken up certain he’d hurt Barry by accident, and Barry wonders if that’s what his pyromaniac episodes are like. Dreams where he’s helpless to stop himself from hurting the people around him.

He encourages Mick into the shower, then zips around the apartment finding and getting rid of matches, lighters, candles, charcoal briquettes. He unplugs electronics, blows out the pilot light on his stove and shuts off the valve, then double checks the batteries in his fire alarms. He feels a little silly doing all of it, but pyromania is a compulsive disorder -- it may help to remove temptation. 

He also takes a second to scan through local news on his phone. The fire department had been dispatched to a low rise apartment building in central Keystone. The fire was contained to one unit, and the only people who had been home when it erupted were the landlady (who lived in the basement) and, presumably, the occupant of the unit, who was now missing. The Keystone Fire Department had no comment yet on whether arson was suspected. 

“I think you should stay with me,” Barry says when Mick walks out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist.

“You crazy? No way, I’m out of here as soon as you find me a pair of pants big enough.”

Barry’s mouth twists wryly, “That... is probably not going to happen. I’m not saying you should move in. But if I recall what Cisco told me earlier correctly, the Waverider takes off for its next mission in 3 days. Not really enough time to find a new place.”

“So I’ll crash with the Rogues,” Mick says.

“Do you really want to be around Hartley right now? Or Lisa?” Barry counters.

“ _Fine_. Snart and I had plenty of safe houses around the city, I’ll pick one of those.”

“Do you really want to be alone right now?”

“You ain’t my boyfriend, Allen,” Mick growls, and Barry rolls his eyes.

“I know that. But you came here for a reason.”

Mick stands there, tense, for another minute. He probably would’ve stormed out if it wasn’t for the pants situation. Finally he slumps against the wall and covers his face with one hand.

“That was the first episode I’ve had since Chronos.”

Barry waits for an explanation, and boy does he get one. Tries to keep his face in check as Mick fills him in on all the details he’d left out that first night they’d been together: his simmering resentment over Len choosing the team over him, choosing a different kind of life over what they’d always had; how Rip’s taunting words had pushed Mick over a line he’d been toeing; Len marooning Mick and Mick’s subsequent capture by the Time Masters; his brainwashing and second life as Chronos.

Barry doesn’t realize he’s been crying until the couch sags next to him with Mick’s weight, and the other man is wiping beneath his eyes with his thumbs.

“Sorry, kid,” Mick rumbles.

“How--“ Barry’s voice cracks -- “How can you be the one apologizing?”

“I ruined everything. Betrayed him. Nearly killed him, and threatened to kill Lisa. If Rip or any of the rest of them had any sense I’d still be locked up in the Waverider’s brig. And still I let this thing--” he gestures between them-- “keep going, knowing if you knew the truth you wouldn’t want anythin’ to do with me.” Mick draws back and slumps over with his elbows resting on his knees. 

Hesitantly, Barry reaches out to rest a hand on Mick’s shoulder. “You weren’t the only one at fault, Mick. You’ve said yourself that Len wasn’t the best at communicating how he was feeling, and even though I’m glad he didn’t strand you in an alternate, dystopian future, he didn’t handle the mission in 2046 the way he should have. And let’s not forget the true villains here -- the Time Masters. _Fuck_ those guys, seriously.”

That pulls a chuckle out of Mick, who allows Barry to coax him backwards until they’re both lying flat on the couch, Mick’s legs dangling over one arm and his head resting on Barry’s stomach with Barry’s hands resting on his shoulders.

“Stay with me, at least until you leave on your next mission.”

“Fine,” Mick sighs, “But we have to get me some pants.”

\-------

Four months after Barry sleeps with Heat Wave for the first time, Lisa and Mick agree to consult with Team Flash on an enemy-of-my-enemy scenario that’s brewing with a new meta-human.

Barry’s in his civilian clothes when they arrive, and Mick pauses for a second, then says, awkwardly, “Lis’, this is Barry. Ramon’s friend. He’s the one I been staying with lately.”

Barry shoots Mick an incredulous look as Lisa embraces him with delight, but Mick just shrugs and shoves his hands in his pockets. Thank god Barry had already come clean with Cisco and Caitlin.

\-------

A couple of weeks after his first Rogues brunch (as Sam, even if Lisa and Hartley know the truth) Barry’s in his bed, riding Mick for all he’s worth.

“NGH-- Mick, come on, harder!” Barry pants as Mick grips his thighs and drives up into him. He keens as the head of Mick’s cock strikes his prostate, and promptly stops bouncing in favor of grinding down against the other man and rocking his hips in tight circles. 

Mick throws his head back, jaw clenched, tendons standing out in his neck, and when he opens his mouth (probably to let forth a string of truly inspired filth) the sound of a ringtone fills the room.

Both men pause for a second and look at each other in confusion. It’s not Barry’s, which means it must be Mick’s, and after a second the two burst out laughing because of course neither of them know what it sounds like. It’s been an on-going joke between them that Mick has no use for a cell phone; he never makes calls and only begrudgingly texts. Most of the time he’s traveling to a period when cell phones haven’t been invented yet, or have already become obsolete. 

“Oh ho,” Barry says, breathlessly continuing what they’d been doing before the interruption, “I suppose that’s your other lover?”

“Yup,” Mick grins as he reaches up to tweak one of Barry’s nipples and resume stroking his dick, “I _always_ take their calls.”

“Jerk,” Barry laughs, then vibrates them both into oblivion. 

Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes later, after a brief snooze, Barry kisses Mick and murmurs against his lips, “You gonna check who that was?”

“Who that was what?” Mick asks slowly, already nearly back to sleep.

Barry pulls his legs up and braces against the headboard, then uses his feet to push Mick slowly toward the edge of the bed.

“All right, all right, Jesus! Someone’s colicky today,” Mick grumbles, digging around in his jeans for his phone. He sits up on the edge of the mattress then holds it in the crook of his shoulder to listen to the voicemail.

Barry watches Mick’s back tense suddenly, and sits up in alarm when Mick leaps up from the bed and starts tearing through the drawer of his clothes in Barry’s dresser. 

“Mick?! What’s going on? Is everything ok?” Barry’s across the room in a flash, trying to spin Mick around, surprised when the other man struggles. “Mick what the hell?!”

Finally the other man calms down, but he’s running his hands compulsively over his head, a thousand-yard stare in his eyes. Barry grabs his hands, cradles them against his chest. 

“That-- that was Lisa,” Mick stammers.

Barry slumps a bit, glad at least that Lisa is OK.

“It’s Snart,” Mick finally says, and Barry’s head whips up in shock.

“He’s back.”


End file.
